Many mobile and handheld devices provide users with a variety of features and functions, including image capture. Examples of such mobile or handheld devices include cellular phones and personal digital assistants. FIG. 1A is a front perspective view of a cellular phone according to the prior art. Cellular phone 100 includes standard display 102, keypad 104 (numbers 0-9, # and *), speaker 106, microphone 108, and user input device 110. User input device 110 may be used to access or select the various features and functions of cellular phone 100.
Built-in digital camera 112 (see FIG. 1B) is used to capture still and video images. Typically a small display 114 is located on the outside 116 of cellular phone 100 to display the date, time, and various status icons such as the amount of battery charge and the signal strength. Digital camera 112 typically includes a single image sensor, such as a Charge Coupled Device (CCD) or Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor.
Because most mobile and handheld devices, such as cellular phone 100, include a single image sensor, it can be difficult to implement some applications, such as video conferencing. Camera 112 focuses on objects positioned in front of camera 112 while display 102 is located on the inside 118 (FIG. 1A) of cellular phone 100. This means a user cannot look at camera 112 to capture his or her image while simultaneously looking at the image on display 102.
As a result, some imaging systems have considered or implemented the use of multiple image sensors or multiple standard displays. These solutions, however, are more costly and challenging to implement, given the limited size of some imaging devices. Moreover, when multiple image sensors are utilized, many of the components included in an image sensor are duplicated in each image sensor.